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Thursday, 21 March 2013

Which Alien Are You?

Usually with any trilogy or in
this case quadrilogy each film stands on its own terms. Those terms can be
based on any element in cinema but in most cases it’s usually the genre. From
Ridley Scott’s 1979 Sci-Fi Horror Alien to the fourth final instalment in the
Alien franchise Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 1997 Sci-Fi Alien Resurrection. But with
the Alien franchise each film has a specific role in the quadrilogy. Everyone
has its own opinion from personal preference from the 1979 Alien being more
horror based to the James Cameron 1986 release Aliens being more action based.
What I love about each Alien film is how it takes the Sci-Fi mise en scène and
places it into different genres. Making each Alien film unique on the
perspective what you like to watch most. Each Alien stands alone through genre
if we take out the Sci-Fi. The 1979 Alien is horror, 1986 Aliens is action, and
1992 Alien 3 is survival and the 1997 Alien Resurrection being a combination of
horror and action.

What made the 79 Alien such a
success and most preferred is not only one of the most terrifying films for its
time it’s one of the only horror and Sci-Fi films that takes it into a
different realm from any other horror or Sci-Fi. In all honestly till this day
I’ve never seen any other Sci-Fi and horror film that can even match up to
Ridley’s Alien. Even today there is no film that can even compare to Alien
apart from maybe the third instalment of the franchise but even then Alien 3
personally stands on the survival element rather than the horror. Being stuck
inside commercial towing spaceship the “Nostromo” with a crew of seven in deep
space is the perfect setting for any horror film.Knowing that in space no one can help you and
“In Space No One Can Hear You Scream”

James Cameron 86 Aliens is usually
the first or second choice of the franchise. Usually the reason is being that
the first Alien only had one Alien. But for the purpose of horror there can
only be one villain or in this case one “Xenomorph”.
But now you can’t have an action film with only one xenomorph especially when
there are colonial marines. Watching Aliens is almost as if you’re watching Stanley
Kubrick’s 1987 “Full Metal Jacket” but
instead of the marines landing in Vietnam fighting the Viet Cong their landing
on the planet LV-426 trying to fight their way out and back on the warship “Sulaco”. It’s a fantastic war film
genre set in the Sci-fi world.

David Fincher’s gritty and dramatically
obscure look into Alien 3 to me personally is one of my favourite of the
franchise. Personally Alien 3 stands out as one of the most beautifully shot
and visually stylized Alien franchise as of any other future Fincher films like;
1995 Seven, 1997 The Game and 1999 Fight Club. Fincher always visually sets the
character of his films with a dark and stylish thriller sensation with a film
noir and neo noir ambience. The plot is a fantastic setting with Ripley crash
landing on a prison refinery planet with a population of just less than thirty
most of them being violent criminals with a history of rape and murder. So not
only Ripley has to discover if there is a xenomorph on the planet but she also
has to keep her guard up against the convicts. The constant feeling of fear and
that there are no weapons on the planet adds more to the atmosphere of danger. This
is a fantastic ingredient for any survival film. The sole purpose of a survival
film is that the protagonist and other characters have to survive with bare the
minimum.

The last and fourth Alien is personally
the weakest of the franchise however it is the only standing Alien film that
every shot and every scene is cinematically and exquisitely shot. It created
such a fantastic Sci-Fi atmosphere that only the first 79 Alien had accomplished.
Watching and re-watching it is a stylized perception it truly does have elements
to tech-noir. Having the visual an atmosphere for neo noir and noir Alien Resurrection
really does remind of a darker and more thrilling version of Blade Runner with
a monstrous creation of the first ever tech noir film Frankenstein.